Live Feedback: Issue 14: Additional PvP Changes

Use the following topic to discuss Live Feedback: Issue 14: PVP Changes.

PVP Changes
<ul type="square">[*] PVP Phase Changes: -Any player in a phased state, including Phase shifted or Dimension shifted, can be attacked by other phased players. Hibernate and Cage effects are still impenetrable, since they do not phase the player.[/list]Powers that can be used to attack other phased players include:
<ul type="square">[*] Phase Shift[*] Dimension Shift[*] Quantum Flight[*] Nebulous Form[*] Black Hole[*] Manifold Resonator[*] Hyper Phase[*] Phase flight[*] Ethereal Shift[*] Players under the Ghost effects of Spirit Potions can only attack other players under the effects of Spirit Potions.[*] PVP Elusivity bonus: The elusivity bonus on Melee Defense Armors and Personal Force field has been reduced slightly. We are adjusting this carefully since the elusivity bonus is intended to keep Aim, Build-up, or To-hit bonus from negating defense armors. Overall, Defense armors are performing well when compared to Resist based armors, and the intention is to keep them a strong contender in PVP. [*] Melee AT Ranged Attacks: Melee archetypes (Tankers, Brutes, Scrappers and Stalkers) had their ranged attacks in their primary, secondary and Epic (Hero Ancillary/Villain Patron power) pools reduced slightly. Since Melee archetypes use ranged attacks that are set on the melee damage table, they do much more damage then they should with ranged attacks. We're reducing this slightly, but overall we're comfortable with the range attacks being very useful.[/list]Additional PvP Changes
<ul type="square">[*] Teleportation Resistance was being affected by Diminishing Returns in PVP. This was an oversight and has been corrected.[*] Fixed Nectar Temp power in PVP, now only has a 2 second duration.[*] Adding a forced respawn to players in pvp zones after two minutes have passed from when they died.[*] Arachnos Widows and Arachnos Soldiers PVP damage on all powers slightly reduced to correct for it using an incorrect high modifier.[*] Tanker, Brute, and Scrapper versions of taunt now display a message when the taunt portion of the power misses in PVP. Stalker taunt is unchanged.[/list]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feedback is important to our development process, there are two types of feedback and both are helpful although some give us more insight and are more easily adapted into game changes.

Objective Feedback: Objective feedback is based upon what you as a user see or experience that other users may also see and experience. This feedback usually can be replicated easily as it involves facts and unbiased opinions. Example: When using the base editor items are sometimes getting caught in columns or pillars.

Subjective Feedback: Subjective feedback is based upon how you feel or experience the game as yourself. This experience may not necessarily be replicated because it is based on feeling and emotion. Subjective feedback is important to us but it is usually helpful if more information is present to describe what and why you feel the way you do. Example: I like the way the graphics look on my shield animation it gives me the feeling of being truly super-powered.

Are you reporting a bug from Issue 14? Please use the Issue 14: Architect: BUGS! thread to report bugs, there is a format in the OP that you can follow to help you in your reporting.

The change to phase shift was a good one. It still provides some level of protection, while adding another level of strategy. Knowing how and when to use it is much more important now.

The reduction in Elusivity powers may have been too much. While many of those powers were a bit overpowered before, they now are back to being almost useless again. Even in their overpowered state, it was a refreshing change to have defense actually be usefull for once. Please re-examine the numbers so that a more comfortable middle ground can be reached.

Also, if possible, could Banes be looked at as another AT that could get Elusivity in it's powers. Bane Spiders seem to be stuck in some kind of middle ground that gives them some defense (but no Elusivity, making the defense almost useless) and some resistance. The problem is that because Banes have two very low resistance powers, they do not benefit from the "free" resistance that squishies get in PvP. This means that a Blaster with no armor powers has more resistance than a Bane with two armor powers. That doesn't seem right in my opinion. I can understand not wanting to grant that free resistance to a AT that has defensive powers, but without Elusivity that defense is next to useless after DR reduces its values. Please look at either granting Elusivity to Bane Spiders or letting them benefit from the free resistance.

I've noticed a remarkable lack of interest in pvp, even from friends who would pvp more than pve, and even after you've added the new IO drops. I'm pretty sure it's due to the almost universally despised mechanics changes. Any chance you devs will notice?

I didn't see a PvP Bugs section but since it involves Phase powers I was wonderin' if a Mastermind using Ethereal Shift to summon and setup in temp phase was intended 'cause its pretty damn nice.

Any chance you devs will notice?

looks at focused accuracy in a pve environment... shakes head... walks away.

Allowing players that are phased to attack other phased player is to assume that the nature of phasing for all those power sets that apply are the same. They are not. Some powers cast the target or user into alternate dimensions. Others might be shifted in space/time, etc. To allow phase players to attack each other is essentially saying that despite all the colorful descriptions that are provided for each power set and power, it doesn't matter, everyone ends up in the same closet when they leave the plan of existence that Paragon City is on. That's absurd. There's an infinite reasons to leave PC in the game reality, and the chances of two players that phase actually running across each other in that place and fighting is highly unlikely and equally absurd.

Speaking as one who could not bare the thought of at least a 1-2 hour RV prowl every night pre i13.. Since the changes I have not been back to PvP and unless these issues are fixed I and I imagine most of those that were fighting against and or with me have little interest in PvP.

Issue 1 and a big one: movement surpression. whoever thinks that PvP should not consist of enemies chasing each other around the city trying to outwit each other at every turn and even engaging in fun melee/flying assault batlles understands very little about PvP IMO

Just standing toe to toe pushing 1 2 3 , unable to take flight or to use SJ as a method to keep your range guy away from the deadly blows of the melee guy just is not appealing to me or my fellow PvPers.

Heck I can think of two superheroes in the Comic world you forced into hanging up their cape and getting a desk job. After all if the power you have that makes you "super" is speed.. with move surpression you now just average schmoe. Can you imagine how happy old Lex is now tho, knowing all he has to do is blow a kiss at Superman and he can drive away in his car while Supes waits for move surpression to wear off?

Another issue back to my fav PvP alt.. a DM/elec brute with fly. Elec has no def, my protection is res, yet now when I zone into pvp my char gets smacked hard in the nose with a pvp nerf bat.. I read a message that everyone gets a bonus res. so I pull up my res to see what I have.. well I guess sets thats strengths lie in other area rather then def/res get that extra dam res from my dam, but in fact all my res drops alot.. like 10-12% across the board except my nrg res which drops 25% My question is this: should my brute alt who's str is or should be melee attacks and very high res now also get say extra holds or buffs an debuffs? After all my alts who's strengths lie there are getting a res buff, where this char gets ress nerf.

I mean who the heck read "The Death of Superman" back in the 90s and thought.. "Aww man Doomsday killed Supes and no other hero is in Supes league.. I know what would make this comic universe cooler, lets make Robin the boy wonder stronger and Superman weaker so they can fight the same stuff and maybe even fight each other and be evenly matched."
That idea is SOOO far off from the comic worlds I grew up reading it's not even funny.

True I loved the power of my Superman-like alt the most, but I still logged my Robin-like support guys to PvP. They offered a completely different strategy for survival to my uber alts. I want my Superalts to be super alts and my Robinlike guys to be weaker support troops fighting beside the greater hero to save the day.

Sadly the emptyness of this feedback column reminds me of another sad fact. There are very few of us hardcore PvPers left here lurking in the shadow hoping and waiting that PvP becomes fun again. Many have gone off looking for an MMO that could satisfy their need for that heart pounding frantic battle that only comes from fightin another intelligent player as apposed to predictable NpC MOBs

The thing is, I've sampled a few other MMOs wondering if I could get the same quality of game that offer PvP the way it used to be pre13..and I can't, there is NO other MMO even close to CoX in overall quality IMO. But the PvP here now is so crappy now that it's not even on the charts of the other games.
So I stuck (and thinking there must be others who did also) with the overall quality and altho me and the handful of your base hardcore PvP are still around silenty lurking in the shadows we are all still waiting for the day PvP will be enjoyable again. I'm thinking if you can fix PvP then they will all come back for the better quality of this game, heck you wouldn't even have to make PvP better than or even as good as other MMOs out there. Just removing move supression and the "power-balancing" attempt would most likely bring many PvPers back and even hook alot of these new trial people.
Alot of the new people tryng this game would have loved the old PvP. For many that were scared off by the recent deletion of characters based on vague rules post combined with the civil unrest we had lately were not farming the exploits because they wanted to "cheat". Some had no idea there was anything else. They made a char to try a new game, someone invited them to a team and said come to this building and they had a blast farming the MA. The few I talked to in game talked about how fun it was the rush of killing huge spawns of crits. That rush is same as PvP rush.
The blanket implication that all farming was a cheat and we will be deciding how to punish you, scared alot of the newbloods away
That would be due to you all seeming to have a problem balancing or maybe even understnding (lol) risk=reward.

Example: I hear the DB boss farms were xploits due to how easy they were. Man I'd love to get one of yall to duo with me one day and I'd show you how wrong that was.
My brute and most of the people I farmed with had no fly, and the fight was WAAAYY more tough then regular game content. Don't believe? try this.. take an elec brute into Rikti war zone and go stand him in middle of a group say 10-15 rikti that con red to you.. now go make a snack and when you come back they will all be dead and you unscratched. The farm boss cheat that was according to yall risk&lt;reward .. take that same elec alt an see how many insps you burn trying to stay alive.

It seems to me like tampering with the bane spider damage was not a good idea. The bane spider already looses considerable defense when zoning to pvp, and depending on how you are enhanced you might even be loosing damage resistance. They have nowhere near the damage output for strike (while they have some advantages over stalkers) but their decent/above average damage output was the only thing that made them even decent (and not good mind you, decent) PVP toons.

For the SUBJECTIVE SIDE, I would say that pvp has been going downhill for a very long time. Defenders, controllers, dominators, blasters and most especially Masterminds have all been bulked up so much and the archtypes that are supposed to be strong are all wimped out. Now that holds always get through (a terrible mistake from I12) most of the strongest builds in the game cannot even compete on equal footing with poorly enhanced and otherwise weak opponents.

To put it another way... I spent 3 billion influence (all earned the hard way) enhancing my scrapper... and he gets owned by weak little toons that can't live through 1 mob in Rikti WZ. That is pathetic. If they can kill my toon in PVP, they should at least have some strength, skillful players and decent enhancements of their own. My hope is that PVP will one day be fun. They will modify it so that whatever kind of toon you have... if you work hard and invest a lot of time into it... then you will be a strong contender in pvp. As it is, they are working in the other direction.

I think I might be the kind of player the devs hope to attract to PVP. I appreciate all the effort that went into the changes that were made, but I do have to say that, unfortunately, they are not likely to draw me into the PVP world at this time.

The reason is that just looking at these changes, I feel completely overwhelmed. The rules look so contrary to what my PVE experience has been. Suddenly, escape tactics won't work. As a Controller, I need to go toe to toe with melee characters who should be able to rip me apart (I guess?)

The rules on healing seem very strange to me as well. Diminishing returns? So in other words, if I use a heal I need to always make sure it's my targeted one and not my area-effect, because if I use my weak heal at all I actually hurt myself?

I don't know what the solution for PVP is. Hopefully you guys will come up with something to make it really enjoyable. But right now I feel like PVP is an arcane system with more rules than a tax form. Thanks again for your hard work, we appreciate that you want to make the game better, even if we don't always agree on what "better" is.

Apparently, you have not played a mind/psi dominator lately in pvp have you. Avoid blanket assumptions in the future...

all i can say is bring i12 pvp back and im 100% sure there subscribers will rise alot and i know tons of players would reactivate there accounts as soon as they found out about it

"Something Old Can Be Something New Again"

I have to agree the Devs are trying. NOTE: I do not PVP will not PVP. I like the PvE side. You,Devs,should listen to the people who are PvPing and stop trying to find ways to encourage or drag others into it who have no desire to do so.
(last is the new recipes that only drop PvP. If I decide to go for them will just get a friend to put a villian in far corner some were and then hit a rez on auto while I put my scrapper on an auto attack and go to bed. There ya go,two more PvPers.)

CAN PLEASE THANK THE DEV'S! FOR THE MANY ISSUES CLAIMING THE GOING MAKE PVP EQUAL. Good Jobs guys you guys really fix thing when you drinking your Starbucks. Ok equal... Now in i14 Spam Healers are toon to be. Villains can't produce much damage to a spam healer cause the dev's has nerf damage. Stalkers/Brutes/etc damage is not enough to kill a spam healer. All you see now are Rads! I mean cool that there good... but what point pvping on villain side stalker and Widows are nerf on there defensive and damage. Hit with a Rad infection equals a quick death. Thermals are ok you can say since they can spam heals. Honestly you device is turning this game to NERF CITY... and making PVP slow and stupid. Again you guys don't care about PVP but nice chunk of people do. I'm not sure how much percent of pvpers and how it affect you guys pockets... but really wondering how CHAMPIONS ONLINE PVP going be like... You had over 5 issues stating that byou going make PVP equal..all you did was just make a favor of the month toon.

This has got to be one of the most uninformed posts ever.

wow... man... edit much?

I recently had another good stab at Zone PvP on my Elec/EA stalker, never been that great at PvP but im far from a fool. A friend of mine was on his Prize 600 billion inf blaster, Sonic/EM. Ive invested a bit into sets myself, mainly for the PvE game and mainly to the point of Soft Capping my Defence. So upon entering a PvP Zone im whacked with -20% or so Defence off the bat, seemingly when I attack or am not in a hidden state i lose ALL defence associated with Hide, not just the bonus AoE Defence. Thats 9.5% Defence in PvE, so I lose 1/5th of my Defence just by attacking in PvE, Please change the quick info on hide as this doesnt not relflect what happens in game, either that or change Hide so it doesnt Suppress all of the defence while out of hidden states. I always gathered the only the AoE Defence would be suppressed, according to Combat Attributes it suppresses all of it.

So Im thinking 57% Energy Defence smacked Down to 35%ish just for being in a PvP Zone, Harsh. But thats ok Elusivity will save me, even if i lose 5 or so percent while attacking. Turns out it did not. My friend invested a great deal of inf on getting a 2.10 Accuracy Modifier with a hefty Tohit Bonus outside of BU and Aim to boot. so he smacks me with Total Focus with a 95% to hit, while my rebutle with a Built Up Thunder Strike yielded 56% Tohit and missed.

Now I wasnt angry at him for doing as such, but I was angry that this could even happen. Energy Aura is, for all intents and purposes ment to be the strongest armour Vs Energy Based Attacks, hands down (Yes even Elec Armour).

So when faced with a foe that has nothing but Energy Attacks, when Ive invested inf time and effort to making my Def as high as possible, should expect this foe to have difficulty hitting me. Now as I understand it a base modifier of 2.10 is difficult to achieve, so good on those that do. This is beside the point that PvP now seems to leave all expectations at the door and serve you with 'Hit with High DPS and Kill or Die'.

Good efforts to salvage PvP guys but I think your heading in the wrong direction. Make everyone equal then make small adjustments for strengths. Tanks should be able withstand a beating from more than 2, but less than 4, players for a sustained period. Blasters and Stalkers should dish out fast Damage and Death Etc etc.

Look at Comics, thats what we want for PvP, we want a decent sustained fight thats fast paced and delivers on the Super Powered Aspect. The Transition from PvE to PvP can be overwhelming right now, thats something that should be addressed in the form of almost anything that happens either side of the door should be expected to work reasonably well on the other side.

Use a combination Protection/Resistance again, have armours be able to withstand 4-8 Mag Mez', Stacking did get ridiculous back in i12 but it was still fun for both partys mostly. Any Mez'er should easily be able to 2-3 Stack a Mez, then make them double duration you have now, so theres a lasting effect and a reason to use anti-mez Buffs to bail out that Tanker that just got 4 Stack Held by 2 Domis.

Sustained and challenging Fights, get rid of or at least reduce Healing Decay. Make Healing and Self Damage Effects (Energy Transfer, Enforced Moral, Absorb Pain Etc) be based off of the Targets Max HP. Say the Heal does 20%, it will always heal 20% of the targets Max HP, reguardless of what the target is. This keeps the Squishys Squishy and the Tanks Steel plated. Also makes those self Damage powers that much more dangerous to use for anyone that use's them. Side note on Absorb Pain, be funny to work the Damage off of the healing targets Max HP (Absorbs the Pain on a HP Capped Tanker, Ow!).

Add instant unslotted Health and Stamina to PvP to get into a more Comic book style of combat. Trading blows and blasts at close range. Adjust Movment Suppression for a 60 Foot Combat Radius/Zone. So its still fast, but not to the point were escape is a sure thing if you try for it.

Where available, have short Activating powers remove rooting and have an over ridden Casting-while-on-the-move-Animation, make anything you definatly want rooted interuptable for the activation time rather than enforced rooting. This would make people stop to use the powers or it doesnt work also instantly makes Taunt that much more usefu l(Want your blaster friend to hit that Brute with a high damage attack? get the tant to taunt him so he has a few seconds for a 'Free Shot' with little chance for an interupt). While still having quick attacks to run-and-gun with for fast paced action. Cause thats what I gather most of the PvP community wants, with ofcourse a compromise thrown in to solve the over riding of Rooting periods.

Refocus the averaging of Damage, Resistance and Defence to the ATs strengths (so everyones close to the average but say a Fire Corr Blasting a Fire Aura Tank would be difficult at face value)

Make True Travel powers have an irresitable end cost multiplyer (polar opposite of conserve power) while they are active

Add unenhancable run speed increase to hasten with resistance to slow effects as the 'Combat' equivlant of Super Speed

Make Team Teleport the 'combat' vaiation of Teleport leaving it unsuppressed with reduced radius, range and End cost but have both range and radius increase with Range enhancment, remove the hover component when used with the same proximity triger for Grounded and add a resistance to teleport for like 4 seconds

Add a defensive and offensive stance toggles (with duration Timers like Phase Shift). Defensive granting 4 Mag Protection to Mez, 10% Resistance and 5% Elusivity but reducing Global Acc, Damage and Mag of Offensive Mez by half. Offensive granting Bonus 0.25 Global Acc, 25% Damage and 25% Mez Duration but reducing Mez resistance, Resistance and Defence by half.

Stuff like that, make PvP fairly easy to traslate to and embody the sort of combat we grew up with in comics. Heck you could probably make alot of this for PvE as well. Id like a more average damage for my fenders and tanks, Blasters and scrappers will still out proform them in damage, more so with Defender/Troller Buffs.

Oh come to think of it, even AS could be made with in built diminished returns, where its critical component is like 40% of Targets Current HP, Enhancable to 60% of Current HP +Normal Damage. So a good 1st stike but loses impact after that. Decrease its range back to 5 feet to make it the 'Up close and personal' death strike.

Dev's screw the pvp aspect of this game to please the PVE players. PVE player who try pvp would get simply own. How I like at it is you going to get some A-wipping before you start to be decent pvping. Having a toon with Single Origin suck badly... so no equal there. IO's and Accolades would still benefit a player.

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Dev's screw the pvp aspect of this game to please the PVE players. PVE player who try pvp would get simply own. How I like at it is you going to get some A-wipping before you start to be decent pvping. Having a toon with Single Origin suck badly... so no equal there. IO's and Accolades would still benefit a player.

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My head hurts . . . . .

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The change to phase shift was a good one. It still provides some level of protection, while adding another level of strategy. Knowing how and when to use it is much more important now.

The reduction in Elusivity powers may have been too much. While many of those powers were a bit overpowered before, they now are back to being almost useless again. Even in their overpowered state, it was a refreshing change to have defense actually be usefull for once. Please re-examine the numbers so that a more comfortable middle ground can be reached.

Also, if possible, could Banes be looked at as another AT that could get Elusivity in it's powers. Bane Spiders seem to be stuck in some kind of middle ground that gives them some defense (but no Elusivity, making the defense almost useless) and some resistance. The problem is that because Banes have two very low resistance powers, they do not benefit from the "free" resistance that squishies get in PvP. This means that a Blaster with no armor powers has more resistance than a Bane with two armor powers. That doesn't seem right in my opinion. I can understand not wanting to grant that free resistance to a AT that has defensive powers, but without Elusivity that defense is next to useless after DR reduces its values. Please look at either granting Elusivity to Bane Spiders or letting them benefit from the free resistance.

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QFE
Well said.

WARNING: I bold names.

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Dev's screw the pvp aspect of this game to please the PVE players. PVE player who try pvp would get simply own. How I like at it is you going to get some A-wipping before you start to be decent pvping. Having a toon with Single Origin suck badly... so no equal there. IO's and Accolades would still benefit a player.

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My head hurts . . . . .

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'Ooo, He card read good' - Homer Simpson

Im not quite sure what your saying Elf, you like i13/14 PvP or not? You think IOs ruined PvP or not? You think that Accolades are essentiual for PvP? Are you hungry?

I think I got a bit of it, you think Castle destroyed PvP to lure PvE players into the PvP game. I think the aim for the Devs should be to reduce the differences between PvE and PvP, from i12 to i13 the differences only got that much bigger. Which in turn lost them alot of their PvP community and almost didnt lure anyone from PvE.

PvP'er want a fast paced game, cause even though its a semi Exploit by Kiteing (Jumping to move while you animating to avoid the rooting period of powers). I think bringing this level of PvP and even PvE abiltys would close the gap between PvE and PvP.

That and the laundry list of suggestions I posted above, Powers and ATs need their strengths to be useful in either game otherwise we end up with City of Blandness and the few that have pull well ahead of the pack. Which ends up being no fun for anyone else but those that have the capability to Purple out their latest FotM Toon.

Sorry for not proof readinf what I post. I been studying and alot crap is running through my head. I hate both issue to be honest... to damn slow and hard earn IO's mean crap cause simple fact stalker defensive is nerf about 50%.

There needs to be more warning about the "Sudden Death" feature in the Swiss Draw setup. There's no indication beforehand it will happen, just the timer hits zero and then your health drops (someone usually dies at that time thanks to DoT or other attacks). Not cool.

Objective Feedback:

I've noticed that after using the Phase Shift powers Ethereal Shift and Hyper Phase, the person isn't allowed to use Hibernate for the same amount of time they won't be allowed to phase shift again. I'm not sure if this is working as intended.

Subjective Feedback:

If the above mentioned is working as intended, it would be nice to change it, since Phase Shift is no longer has the same escape power it use to have, and is more of a situational power, while hibernate isn't as much as an escape power, but more like a reset button for a battle.

Edited for clarity.

Any "phase" powers (this includes Hibernate) start the NoPhase period. However, during the initial 30-second "phase enabled" period you can activate as many phase powers as you like - for example, I hit Hibernate, wait until I'm at full HP and end, queue up Phase Shift, and then drop out of Hibernate, phasing instantly. Phase will detoggle once that 30-second period (starting when I activated Hibernate) is up.

Incidentally, NoPhase also disables the GvE Jump Pack. (!?)